


A Different Sort of Love

by Menzosarres



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-06
Updated: 2014-06-06
Packaged: 2018-02-03 16:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1750877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menzosarres/pseuds/Menzosarres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Aurora gets her heart broken by Philip and Maleficent comforts her. Bonus points if Maleficent wants to destroy Philip and Aurora has to convince her not to.</p><p>Summary: Even if Aurora knows she should be happy with Phillip, he isn’t quite the man of her dreams. Without Maleficent by her side, she tries her best to love him, but trust is a fragile thing.</p><p>Originally posted on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Sort of Love

In the first year after her coronation, Aurora had to admit she nearly forgot about Phillip. He needed to return home to his father’s kingdom, and though he had sought her out before he left, his words hadn’t given her quite the same thrill they had when he was the first human face she’d seen in years.

“Aren’t you going to ask if I’ll be back this way soon?” He’d asked her from astride his horse, smiling in that casual, boyishly handsome way of his.

Mind cluttered with all the new responsibilities she was learning she would have to undertake, Aurora had barely recognized the reference to their first meeting. She could only manage a halfhearted, “I suppose I don’t need to now that you’ve gone and done it for me.”

He didn’t seem to hear her distraction, smiling even more broadly as he replied, “Very soon.”

And then he was gone.

By the time he returned a week after her seventeenth birthday, Aurora almost didn’t recognize him. The year had made him taller, full and broad of shoulder where before he had been slender with youth. When he asked permission to court her, Aurora had thought him charming, had thought him up to the task of keeping her mind from the trials of her queenship, and she had accepted his offer.

In the next months, she learned otherwise. While he had grown in physical stature and years, he was very much the same naïve boy he had been that day by the stream. Aurora knew it was unfair to judge him for his childish mannerisms, but her rule had not been an easy one, and she had aged beyond her years, while Phillip had always lived in the lap of luxury. Even though she knew she should be putting time and energy into making this companionship work for the both of them – after all, her human advisors were overjoyed at the prospect of a royal marriage and a strengthening of the alliances between the two nations on either side of the faerie Moors – Aurora could barely convince herself not to avoid him at every turn. Instead, she accepted the overly ceremonial meals they shared in the great hall and the invitations to stroll the marketplace, but she was never at ease. Phillip enjoyed flaunting his wealth, making it difficult for Aurora to so much as offer an appreciative comment to a shopkeeper about his wares before the prince would swoop in buy it for her. Having grown up without casual wealth at her disposal, Aurora found the displays not only unnecessary, but distasteful, yet she couldn’t find it within herself to act cold and indifferent towards the townspeople who had worked so hard to craft these things; it went against every part of her character not to express her delight at a creative trinket or a beautiful cloth, so she learned instead to distract Phillip with a casual touch or a light compliment.

It was exhausting.

She made excuse after excuse to keep him from joining her in the Moors. They were her safe haven, still the same land of beauty and wonder they had been in her earliest dreams. Even when Maleficent made the journey with her to the human kingdom, they did not share the same easy closeness in the realms of iron as they did beneath the sentient trees.

Oh her fifth journey to the faerie realms, Maleficent finally seemed to realize something was amiss. They rode side by side, Aurora having convinced the winged creature that there were advantages to riding horses instead; namely, being able to talk as they traveled.

“No young prince again I see.”

Aurora shrugged, not wanting to discuss him when she could instead be relishing the way the air grew clearer with each passing hoofbeat.

It wasn’t to be. Maleficent gently reached across the space between them and took hold of Bloom’s bridle, guiding Aurora’s pony to a halt beside her Diaval-stallion. “All the kingdom thinks you are to be wed within the year and you have yet to even show him half of your life.” Aurora tried not to grimace. “Why, little Beastie? You know he is welcome in the Moors.”

Tugging the reins away from Maleficent, she steered Bloom into a walk again, knowing she could hardly escape the conversation but could at least keep them moving. “It isn’t that,” she said when Diaval trotted up beside them again.

“Then what? Do you not care for him as he does for you?”

“Phillip is… very kind. I suppose he is all I could ask for in a prince, and I do care for him…” Aurora trailed off, unsure how to explain. As Maleficent arched an eyebrow in question, Aurora hesitantly continued. “I care for him, but… I enjoy your company so much more.” Now that she had started, the words seemed to come too easily. “I’m selfish; I want time alone with you. For every moment I spend in the castle I wish I were off in the Moors. I go out of my way to please him and can’t help but think how much more lovely it would be to stroll the marketplace by your side, and he wants to talk of nothing but horses and armor and his dreams of going to war… all the imagination of a boy playing knights and knaves. He makes me feel  _old,_ Maleficent. When I’m with you… I feel myself again.”

The rest of the ride passed in silence, Aurora too embarrassed at her own somewhat petulant outburst to look back and see what expression the dark faerie might be wearing.

Once they arrived, Maleficent allowed her a few moments to greet her glowing cloud of welcoming fair folk before pulling her aside. “I’m going to go away for a while,” she said, voice soft but insistent. “Just a few months. I’ll meet you here when you next return.”

Aurora felt as though the mossy slope had slipped completely out from under her feet. “If this is about what I said earlier, I… I didn’t mean… I didn’t want to make you… Oh, please don’t go!”

Despite her pleas, Maleficent was unswayed, and though they sat together in silence to watch the sunset, too soon Maleficent was saying goodbye.

Aurora threw herself into Maleficent’s arms, something she hadn’t done since before her coronation, and she felt a stiffness through the entire body she now held. A single hand reached up to stroke through her hair, coming to rest between Aurora’s shoulder blades. “I’m sorry, Beastie. Tis for the best.”

Before the young queen could offer further protest, her hands had been gently but firmly pried from their place beneath Maleficent’s wings and the protector of the Moors had disappeared off into the evening skies.

After her return to the human side of her world, Aurora began to think perhaps Maleficent had been right. Without the easy safe haven the faerie’s presence had offered her, her time with Phillip began to feel less like a chore. He wanted to hear all about the faerie realms, and it was a topic she could wax poetic about for hours, a nice change from battles and knightcraft and his father’s wealth. The more time she spent with the prince, the easier it became to laugh at his youthful humor, to take his proffered arm without hesitation and press a kiss to his cheek when they parted at the gates. And if a certain pair of glowing emerald eyes still haunted her dreams, taunting her with the memory of a friendship that had held so much more depth than this courtship of convenience, well, Phillip didn’t ask after her dreams, and she would keep them to herself.

After the months had ticked by through the length of a proper courting period, Phillip proposed in the gardens. Aurora wasn’t particularly surprised to see him drop to one knee; after all, he had been less than subtle in convincing her to leave the castle, and the gardens certainly weren’t one of his preferred haunts. Still, his words were sweet and unassuming – _Aurora, I can’t imagine growing old with anyone else, and I don’t want to. Marry me?_  – and the engagement band wasn’t near as horridly gaudy as she had expected, so Aurora said yes in much the same way she had said yes to the start of it all.

After slipping the ring onto her finger, Phillip stood. “Ever since that day three faeries dragged me into your room to try and wake you, I’ve wanted to share a real kiss.”

Before she could fully make sense of his words, he was kissing her, not exactly the most sophisticated of kisses, but at least once their noses slid to the proper sides it was bearable. Still, after he pulled away and bid her goodnight, Aurora wondered where the spark was, the heat and connection and, well, the love.

In a parody of propriety, Aurora managed to convince Phillip that she wasn’t interested in going any further until after they were wed. In truth, she wasn’t interested at all. Still, she soon got caught up in the flurry of preparations at the castle, the joy on her people’s faces infectious and real. A royal wedding was cause for a celebration, and if there was one thing her now healing lands needed, it was that spirit of purpose, the unifying call to create festivity. By the time she was ready to return to the Moors for her last visit as a maiden, she was beginning to think that maybe this – this bright, heady glow that greeted her on the face of every man, woman, and child she passed – was the start of a love she could live with, and even if Phillip wasn’t perfect, he had given her this.

She couldn’t imagine any excuse would keep Phillip from joining her on this final trip to her second kingdom, and she wasn’t going to attempt to convince him otherwise, but she was pleasantly surprised to hear him regretfully decline her invitation, insisting that he needed to make one final journey home to help his family and many of his subjects prepare to travel for the wedding. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him to see the Moors, but knowing she would finally see Maleficent again was a moment for which she wanted privacy.

Riding across the new scrub which had begun taking root where the wall of thorns had once grown, Aurora realized just how long it had been since she had last set foot in this part of her kingdom. Her nineteenth birthday had passed just before Phillip’s proposal, the first such day she had celebrated in her kingdom rather than with the fair folk, and almost five months had passed since then. Not once since Maleficent had first taken her beyond the thorns had she been gone for longer than three months. This felt like coming home, but she was worried. Anything could have changed.

She was greeted with the usual flurry of activity, the swamp faeries clambering up the banks to grin and wave even as the oaken soldiers knelt for a moment in respect. Though she laughed freely and called out her hello’s, she felt her smile begin to slip as she noticed the one face she so desperately wanted to see was not among the throng. She spotted her diminutive aunties flitting nervously about the lowest branches of a nearby tree and quickly went over to them. “Where is she?”

It was Merryweather who replied. “Gone, dear. We’ve not seen her since you left. We’re all a bit worried, truth told.”

When three days passed without a sign of the dark faerie, Aurora felt a biting sense of betrayal. The Moors were lifeless without the haunting shadow of that powerful, winged silhouette to welcome her back to this kingdom, and though she put on a cheerful face for her faerie subjects, she could feel a tension building in her that she did not want the peaceful Moors to be subject to.

Out of sheer desperation to get away from a place which sparked memories of Maleficent at every turn, Aurora decided she may as well pay a visit to Phillip’s kingdom at least once before their marriage, and hoped he might be pleasantly surprised if she met him there.

Leaving the Moors from across the marsh, Aurora was a bit taken aback by the… heaviness of her prince’s royal city. The surrounding homes were gaunt and close and pressed in about the cobblestoned streets with the sort of looming darkness she had long since vanquished from her own kingdom. The castle sat on the low end of the hillside; a stout building squatting on the earth like some hulking bullfrog. Though the guards let her pass uncontested at her introduction, she was still alarmed by the heavy clang of each gate she passed through, feeling as though every step she took brought her further into a world impregnated with the very iron she had been working to limit in her lands. Entering the building at last, she tried to shake off the chills racing down her spine.

The interior was more welcoming, if rather gaudy, and the grin on Phillip’s face when his herald announced her arrival helped allay some of her nerves. He greeted her with all the warmth she had been hoping to find on her return to the Moors and it was all Aurora could do to hold back tears.

He took great pleasure showing her off around the castle, and she bore the attention with amusement and all the good grace she could. All went remarkably well until the evening meal, when she was finally introduced to his father, King John.

He seemed a jovial sort at first, with a laugh as big as his stomach and cheeks rosy with both merriment and drink. Phillip insisted she share a few tales of growing up with her three fairy aunts and, for a time, the hall was filled with mirth over her amusing mishaps. Eventually, however, the conversation turned to their upcoming marriage, and King John’s words left her reeling.

“I’m sure Phillip already has everything planned, but if you’d pardon the whim of an old man, I’d like some say in how to best make use of all that land between us.”

Uncomprehending, Aurora asked, “What land?”

Waving a hand dismissively, the king replied, “Oh, you know, with all the creatures you’ve taken charge of. The faeries. Now that we’ve finally gotten rid of that damned hedge, I think it’s about time we took advantage of the resources there. Build a mining town… a lumber mill… I’m sure you know more about what’s there than I do. Perhaps we can domesticate some of the less dangerous breeds.”

Aurora was sure her mouth was hanging open in horror, and as his words sunk in, she was not inclined to temper the anger boiling in the pit of her stomach. “Those  _creatures_  are just as much my responsibility this kingdom is yours, and if you think for one moment I would allow anyone to exploit them in the name of profit and greed—”

“—Aurora!” Phillip hissed, and for a hopeful, delirious moment, she thought he might defend her, but instead he muttered, “My father didn’t mean any harm. Stop making a scene.”

“Making a scene!” she spluttered, rising to her feet. “You really expect me to sit here while he talks about… about  _domesticating_  my subjects!”

Blinking up at her blankly, Phillip tried to calm her. “I didn’t realize you felt so… strongly about this. I know we haven’t really discussed the swamplands but… You do realize once I’m king I can’t just allow that land to go to waste?”

Staring down at the patronizing man had just begun to believe she could come to love, Aurora was stunned into silence. Gathering herself, she finally spoke. “You will  _never_  have any say in how I govern the faerie realms as long as I am queen, and if you cannot understand that, I cannot be your wife.”

Visibly blanching, Phillip rose. “Can we discuss this privately?”

Staring into his eyes, Aurora saw no desire to come to an understanding, only a desire to regain his authority in his father’s eyes. “No, Phillip, I don’t think we can.”

With no further ado, she tugged off her engagement band and set it on the table. She strode from the room without a backwards glance, not stopping until she had retrieved her horse from the stables and ridden well beyond the boundaries of that oppressive city and out into the arid tract of no-man’s-land between the kingdom of men and the Moors.   

She rode Bloom with a fury the poor pony had never known, giving him free rein as she did her best to steer through the tears in her eyes. She wondered if this was how it felt to have a broken heart, though it felt more a betrayal by someone she had come to trust, and as she felt the land grow soft and damp beneath Bloom’s hooves, he wondered if these tears were for Phillip… or Maleficent.

Tugging on the reins, she finally allowed her horse to stop, slipping from the saddle and sinking down to the earth, settling on one of the rocks that marked the start of the craggy cliffs where she had first watched Maleficent fly freely. “Maleficent!” she cried out, as though nothing more was needed to summon her than her voice and her anger. There was rage in that cry, and she flinched as she heard it echo back to her from the face of the stone bluffs. The sound of it fractured her fury and allowed her sorrow to peek through, and she gasped out, “I need you.”

With just enough energy to take care of Bloom and wrap the saddle blanket about her shoulders, Aurora fell asleep on a flat-topped boulder, feeling impossibly alone.

She woke comfortable and disoriented, her mind trying to piece together the cold, hard thing she had fallen asleep on with the soft, feathered warmth now wrapped about her.

_Feathered…?_

Jerking fully awake, she found herself staring directly into the brilliant emerald eyes which had haunted so many of her dreams.  “Maleficent,” she whispered, half afraid her voice would shatter the illusion and she would be alone again.

“Hello, Beastie.” The greeting was simple, but heavy with things unsaid.

“How did you find me? Why did you come?”

“Did you really think you could fall asleep in tears in the Moors and I wouldn’t know?”

Aurora pushed away from her living blanket and pulled herself out into the chill of dawn, the lingering resentment from the night before finally catching up to her. “Don’t tease me, not now. Not after leaving me for all this time.”

She wasn’t ready for the look of apology she saw in Maleficent’s eyes, so she turned her back, sitting on the stone with her knees pulled tight against her chest for comfort. Still, when the dark faerie came up behind her and pulled her back into the warmth of her winged embrace, she didn’t resist. “I’m sorry. It was Diaval, actually. When a few of the border folk found you here last night, they knew he was the only way to reach me.”

Though grateful for the real explanation, it was still only an answer to the most superficial of her questions.

“Why?” Her voice cracked. “Why did you let me waste nearly two years of my life on a boy who wanted nothing more than to take advantage of all this?” She gestured widely at the surrounding marshlands.

The hand Maleficent had rested on her shoulder tightened. “ _What?”_  she hissed out.

Despite her own desperate desire for answers, it was so much simpler to let everything spill out of her, from the time she thought she was falling in love to the moment she realized what a fool she had been. Maleficent was silent throughout her words, but when she started crying again, recounting the conversation with King John with the whispered realization, “I may well have started another war,” Maleficent pulled her closer, holding her tight until she could speak again. “I can’t fight a war, Maleficent. What have I done?”

“You’ve done all that you could,” Maleficent replied. “If I had known… I never imagined…” She paused, and Aurora could feel the wings around her trembling and tense. “You must know I never wanted this for you. I will destroy that child and his bastard father myself before I allow either of them to set foot in our lands.” Something dark and feral was fighting its way through the faerie. “I will destroy him regardless for the time he has stolen from your life. He will pay for this.”

Aurora turned in Maleficent’s arms, a part of her feeling impossibly thrilled at the idea of allowing all of that power and rage loose on those two sad little men, but she knew that was not the answer. She ran a soothing hand along the nearest arm as she said, “No, Maleficent. Phillip is… his father’s son, but I truly believe he meant no harm; he is simply as ignorant and petty as I once believed him to be.”

Maleficent shook her head, but her most immediate fury had calmed. “To think you tried to tell me and all I could hear was my own worry that I was keeping you from him again.”

A memory sparked in the back of Aurora’s mind, something that had been bothering her since Phillip’s proposal to her. “He was there, that night in the castle, the night when I was cursed, wasn’t he?”

Maleficent nodded, arching an eyebrow in confusion at the abrupt change of subject.

“He mentioned it to me… kissing me while I was asleep. How… how did the curse end?

Maleficent’s eyes widened. “You didn’t know?”

“Somehow I always thought you had just… taken it off, lifted the curse the same way you had cast it.”

“I tried; believe me. Long before you even knew of it I tried to revoke it but… I had outwitted myself.”

“How did it break, then?” Aurora asked hesitantly.

“True love’s kiss.”

Aurora jerked back as though burned. “ _Phillip?”_

“Oh heavens no!” Maleficent growled, baring her teeth as though affronted by the very idea.

More quietly, Aurora asked, “You?”

Maleficent slowly nodded, but was quick to explain. “It was a different sort of love, then. Almost… selfish, I suppose.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “I loved you the way a robber loves the crumbling wall of his prison, the lucky break that gives him a second chance. I loved that guileless way you looked at me, as though I were the good in the world rather than the evil. I loved you as a protector, because even without my wings you trusted me to keep you safe.” Her voice had grown quiet. “It really was clever of me, in a terrible way. To break your curse, I had to find a love  _I_ could believe in. You gave that to me and I thought… I thought I could give you a love of your own. I thought… if I left… if I stopped being so selfish, stopped wanting to keep you near me, if I just handed you Phillip and a little time…” She laughed bitterly.

“We’re quite a pair, hmm?” Aurora asked, trying to keep her voice light. “Looking for love in all the wrong places?”

Those impossibly crimson lips quirked up into a wry smile. “I suppose I should have known better by now.”

“Yes,” Aurora scolded, though her tone was light. “You should have.” She turned around again, but before Maleficent could worry that she might still be angry, Aurora settled back against her, smiling when those beautiful wings folded in around them once more. “As long as you swear never to play matchmaker again, I think I can forgive you.” She tipped her head back far enough that she was looking up at Maleficent from upside-down.

Now wearing a real smile, Maleficent nodded. “I think I can promise that.” Leaning forward, she placed a gentle kiss on Aurora’s forehead, murmuring softly, “That’s how I broke the curse.”

Before she could pull away, Aurora tipped her head back even further and managed to catch the corner of the dark faerie’s lips with her own, drawing a startled gasp.

“Aurora, I—”

“Shh,” the young queen insisted, pulling Maleficent’s arms tight about her waist. “No more running. No more princes. I have everything I need right here.” 


End file.
